


My Heart Bleeds My Love For You

by stellacanta



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 10:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacanta/pseuds/stellacanta
Summary: It started as a tickle in the back of his throat. A cough that never really went away. It wasn’t until he coughed up the pale pink blossoms that he realized what was happening.The flowers weren’t particularly flashy or vibrant. They were a vibrant pink with a pink and white teardrop like protrusion from the center. What was unique about them was the shape, an upside down heart with a drop that seemed to fall from its center: a bleeding heart.





	My Heart Bleeds My Love For You

**Author's Note:**

> ... I mean if the character death warning didn't give it away ... things play out as they did in canon, just with a hanahaki twist :')  
>  ~~Will I write fluff for this pair? Maybe ... one day.~~

It started as a tickle in the back of his throat. A cough that never really went away. It wasn’t until he coughed up the pale pink blossoms that he realized what was happening.

The flowers weren’t particularly flashy or vibrant. They were a vibrant pink with a pink and white teardrop like protrusion from the center. What was unique about them was the shape, an upside down heart with a drop that seemed to fall from its center: a bleeding heart.

Titus gulped as he held up the pale blossom to the light. He had heard the stories of course, of people coughing up flowers when their loved was unreturned. The flowers themselves a symbol of their affection for another person. And there was only one person that the flower could represent, a person whose name just so happened to mean heart. Cor Leonis.

…

“Have you ever thought of traveling to Niflheim when the war is over, marshal?” Titus asked Cor this question one day out of the blue while the two just so happened to be sharing an office together. He briefly thought about the handful of bleeding hearts that he had thrown into the trash can on the men’s room closest to the office. He wondered if Cor noticed them. (He wondered if Cor would even care if he did.)

Cor paused in the middle of the report he was busily typing up and stared at Titus, confusion evident in his furrowed brows and frown. “Niflheim? Why would I want to go to enemy territory?”

“Well, if wouldn’t be enemy territory if the war was over-”

The other man snorted and went back to typing up his report. “Fat chance of that happening. The Nifs aren’t going to suddenly stop attacking us like that, Titus. I’d be suspicious if they did.”

Titus continued, “say there was a peace treaty-”

“-Peace treaty?! With Niflheim?” Cor’s voice boomed like thunder through the room as he stopped typing and glared at Titus. “You think they’d just agree to peace like that? In case you haven’t noticed, commander, we’re at war and we’re not exactly on the winning side-”

“-say there was peace,” Titus said, raising his voice above Cor’s. “If you could travel anywhere in all of Eos, and yes that includes Niflheim and its territories, where would you want to go?”

Cor continued to stare at him in confusion and no small amount of barely restrained anger. He watched at the other man searched his face, which he made sure to keep carefully blank. Cor Leonis could not read minds. It was not a power he possessed. Still, Titus had learned to be careful. Even if there was no one with the ability to read minds in Lucis (indeed, on the entirety of Eos), some men could reveal their secrets on their faces. Titus was careful not to be one of those men. (His secrets were too dark and serious to be revealed like that.) “Is-” Cor hesitated for a moment before he spoke again. “-is this your way of saying you’d like a vacation?”

Titus laughed, a lighthearted chuckle that felt foreign on his tongue and insincere besides. “Couldn’t we all use a vacation? The king and his shield especially, they seemed to have aged rapidly as of late given the situation with Niflheim.”

“A king can’t rest, however, and neither can his shield that must protect him at all times.” Cor had gone back to writing his report. Titus couldn’t help but notice that the other man was typing at a more sedate pace and occasionally glancing over in his direction.

He shook his head and continued looking over the reports he had in front of him. (Some glaives had gone off script during their last mission and caused an unfortunate amount of property damage. He would have to punish them for it, _after_ he familiarized himself with what they had done and how much damage they had caused.) “Ah, but we are simply men beneath them and I would like to think that no one would begrudge _us_ for wanting some time to ourselves.” Cor snorted. “As for me, I think, when this is all over-” A soft look spread over his face as he continued to look at the report. “-I would like to visit Tenebrae.”

“Tenebrae?” Cor glanced over the top of his monitor at him. “You want to visit the oracle?”

Titus just managed to hide a grin behind one hand. He gave a noncommittal hum as his eyes scanned the report. A few deep breaths later, and a sharp bite to his inside lip, and Titus had managed to get himself calmed down. “No, actually, I would like to see the sylleblossoms. There is supposedly a field of them just outside the city and I would like to view it for myself.”

“Sylleblossoms?” One of Cor’s eyebrows was raised, and the marshal made a small noise of disbelief as he paused to read over what he had written. “I never took you as someone who’d enjoy flower viewing.” Seemingly satisfied with what he had written, Cor resumed writing his report. The sound of typing was the only thing that could be heard for a while.

Titus watched him for a long minute and went back to his reports. He picked up a pen and made a few notes in the margins of the paper. “There’s a lot that you don’t know about me marshal.” Titus paused and squinted at a number on the page. After a moment, he hesitantly circled the figure and put down some question marks next to it before scanning further down the page. “If there’s nowhere you would go, perhaps you could see them with me? When this is all over? It seems lonely to just visit them by myself.” Cor made a noncommittal noise and uttered a word that could have been ‘sure’.

He smiled to himself and couldn’t stop grinning for the rest of the day. (The thought of Cor amongst the sylleblossoms followed him to his dreams.)

…

Titus never did get to take Cor to see the sylleblossoms.

He coughed up bloody flowers when Nyx thrust his kukri into his chest, the half of his face unhidden by armor squeezing up in pain. Nyx’s face contorted in horror when the glaive realized what was happening, bloody blossoms overflowing from the twisted edges of Titus’ armor onto the ground. Instead of blood, all he could do was cough up flowers.

“Who?”

Titus gave a bitter smile as blood seeped from the wound and the pain only grew. “I thought the flowers made it obvious.” He said, and then added, “they’re better off not knowing.”

Titus slumped to the ground when the pain grew too much to bear and he felt the darkness take him. He could just make out the look of anger mixing with pain on Nyx’s face and his mouth curved into the smallest of smirks. The glaive was still young, and possibly a romantic at heart. The thought of not confessing would have never occurred to him.

(But how could he burden Cor with those feeling? No, things ended as they should have. He admired Nyx’s convictions even if he did not share the sentiment. Cor was better off oblivious to everything that had happened and that had been done.)

And, when all was said and done, dying in battle was infinitely more preferable to choking on bloody flowers that would eventually fill his lungs and throat. Choking on a love that could never be revealed.

He breathed his last and tried to cling to the image of his beloved amongst the sylleblossoms that chanced upon him in a dream. A soft smile formed on his face as he thought he could see Cor reaching for him. “Cor…”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Meet me Amongst the Sylleblossoms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18638989) by [stellacanta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacanta/pseuds/stellacanta)
  * [Flowers of Pink and Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18834916) by [stellacanta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacanta/pseuds/stellacanta)




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